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When getting ready to sell your house, there’s a lot to worry about—home staging, repairs, keeping rooms tidy for home tours, and more. But there’s also one important thing that many sellers forget to do: hide their prescription drugs.

Sorry to break it to you, but some "buyers" touring your home might just be rooting around for valuables, and you might be surprised by which medications fit the bill.

Here's what sellers need to know about the risks of prescription drugs at open houses, and how to keep all of their belongings safe.

Which drugs to hide during an open house

When preparing for an open house, plenty of homeowners put away their expensive jewelry, electronics, and checkbooks. But prescription drugs often get overlooked since they're generally tucked away in medicine cabinets and drawers.

Although the painkiller OxyContin may be the most commonly abused prescription drug (and at highest risk for theft), also high on the list are attention deficit disorder medications like Concerta and Adderall, depression and anxiety medications like Zoloft and Xanax, and sleep aids like Ambien.

Plus, prescriptions aren't the only drugs that could get swiped for recreational use. For example, over-the-counter cough suppressants (e.g., NyQuil) can be abused by being mixed with alcohol or other drugs. And sinus medications containing pseudoephedrine, like Sudafed, can be used to make meth. Even the heartburn medication Prilosec has been known to be abused due to the euphoric effect it has when taken with methadone.

Make sure these, and all other medications, are removed from your medicine cabinet. Even if a medication seems innocuous, it's better to be safe than sorry.

How to keep your belongings safe

If you’re getting ready to show your home, walk around the house thinking like a stranger. What’s easy to pick up? What might be easy to sell? This is a great guideline for medications, but also for hiding anyvaluables in your home. Think about wine, perfume bottles, expensive lotions, even your designer tie collection.

Since it can be hard to know what thieves are looking for, try walking around the house with a real estate agent to make sure you’ve noticed everything. Make sure you don't leave your checkbook in an unlocked drawer; and hide your laptop, tablet, and cellphone.

The safe way to discard old pills

After a good sweep of your medicine cabinet, you might find yourself with a few bottles of pills you don’t need anymore. While your instinct might be to simply trash them before an open house, there’s a better way to dispose of them.

Many homeowners are making use of Deterra bags, and other drug-deactivation systems, to safely dispose of medications. Deterra bags work by using an activated carbon pod, which, when mixed with warm water, absorbs the active ingredients in pills, patches, and liquids, rendering the drugs inactive.

“We’re giving them to agents to give to homeowners when they’re buying or selling homes,” says former Nevada Realtors president Heidi Kasama, a supporter of RALI, the Rx Abuse Leadership Initiative.

According to Nevada Business, RALI partners are distributing 500,000 pouches to residents of Nevada. Many other supporters of the initiative have had the opportunity to pass them out as well.

If you don't have access to a drug-deactivation bag, there are other ways to dispose of your unused medications. Drugs can be flushed down the toilet, but only if they are on the FDA's flush list. If they are not on the list, the FDA recommends mixing the drugs with an unappealing substance like cat litter or dirt, putting the mixture in a sealed plastic bag, and throwing it away in the trash.

The FDA also states that it's important to make sure you scratch out the information (like your name and what drug you were prescribed) on the prescription bottle.

If flushing and throwing medications away are not possible, you can always turn unused drugs into your nearest drug take-back location.

Why 'hidden' isn't always 'safe'

Once you’ve found everything of value, you may be wondering what to do with it. Your first instinct might be to hide valuables in a closet or in a drawer, but buyers often look in closets (to see how much storage space there is) and they can easily open drawers.

“When I tell owners to put valuables away, I recommend to not hide them in some obvious place, but put some thought into it, or put items in a safe,” Kasama says.

But if you don't have a safe, you might consider locking valuables in a desk drawer, buying a large (and heavy) trunk with a lock to store your valuables, or even putting them in the trunk of your car. If you have friends or family you trust living nearby, you might even ask if you can store a few boxes of your most precious items there.

Ask your real estate agent to keep an eye on buyers

Even if you think you’ve cleared out all your valuables, it’s still important to watch potential buyers in your house.

Of course, most of the time, the homeowner will be away when the house is being shown, so make sure your real estate agent is keeping an eye out for you.

Allison Jung, a real estate agent in Las Vegas, says she finds power in numbers when it comes to preventing theft in open houses.

“I have another agent, escrow or lender partner attend the open house with me,” Jung explains. “That way we can station ourselves in different parts of the house to keep an eye on things.”

Kasama says she’s always on the lookout for suspicious activity.

“We had a showing once, and four people came in,” she recalls. “They immediately split up and took off in two directions and didn't seem to want to listen to anything about the house. A big red flag. We called after them and said they had to all stay together and we would tour them through the house. They left very shortly after that, which tells me they were not there to look at the house.”

DISCLOSURE: THE CONTENT PROVIDED ON THIS WEBSITE IS FOR EDUCATIONAL AND INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY, AND IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE, MENTAL HEALTH ADVICE, OR THERAPY. IF YOU ARE HAVING A MEDICAL OR MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEM, PLEASE SEEK APPROPRIATE HELP FROM AN APPROPRIATE PROFESSIONAL. IF YOU ARE HAVING A MEDICAL OR MENTAL HEALTH EMERGENCY, PLEASE CALL 911, YOUR LOCAL EMERGENCY NUMBER, OR GO TO YOUR NEAREST EMERGENCY ROOM.